Very few posters here seem to have any understanding of the actual dynamics of this race. I'll share my thoughts as someone who has so far been pretty consistently correct about what people would do.
1. Any comparison to 2003 immediately runs into the problem that Gray Davis was very unpopular in 2003 and Gavin Newsom is not. People predicting a map that looks just like 2003 for some reason would be well served to think about this.
2. TML two pages ago correctly pointed out that the polls that have everyone aflutter don't make any sense if you take them as indications of reality. Polls say all sorts of things before people pay attention to an election. All summer I've been spending about ten hours a week riding my bicycle around Santa Clara County; in that time, I've seen exactly once any indication that there was an election on at all (a "RECALL NEWSOM" sign in the window of a house in Santa Clara). I've seen exactly one ad on television related to the election (an ad with a message from Elizabeth Warren). If you're smart you can figure out what that indicates.
3. It can't be overstated the extent to which every candidate in the field is viewed as a joke candidate. I've been told that the talk show host is known to people in the Los Angeles area who listened to right-wing talk radio ten or fifteen years ago. Most of the electorate is not that. I've never heard of him. John Cox was creamed and immediately forgotten three years ago; if people have to be reminded of him now, the thing that will jog their memory is the bear stunt, which did not exactly make him seem like a credible candidate. Nobody outside San Diego knows who Kevin Faulconer is. The remaining candidates are somehow all even worse. There's a reason that the California Republican Party was unable to unite behind a candidate, in spite of all the incentives for them to do so. In 2003 there were multiple credible candidates; now there are none.
4. The numbers on the second question will look even sillier because of the number of Democrats who will not vote. Plenty will not vote because all the candidates are so awful, plenty will not vote because the Democratic Party is actively encouraging people not to cast a vote on the second question, and plenty will not understand that they can cast a vote on the second question even if they vote no on the first question.
5. Whatever landlord has been polling well on the second question will not get any significant number of votes in the actual election. On these polls, he is the only Democrat listed and respondents are being pushed to answer the second question regardless of their response to the first question; neither of those points reflect what the actual election will be like. Remember in Georgia last year when Lieberman and Tarver were consistently being polled and there was real fear that Lieberman votes would push Warnock out of the runoff? Then the election happened and they were both crushed by a random Democrat with a black name. That should serve as a learning experience.
I know the thought of a shock successful recall is really exciting, especially to the blue avatars here, but they should think about whether this actually makes any sense.
I agree with all of this, except it is missing one big part. Anything can happen in an off year. Newsom is most likely safe, but does the safety and the under-the-radar reporting cut his knees off in turnout?
